Page 23 of One Bet

Oh no. Her eyes flashed and that was the part she latched onto.

“I’m not looking for excuses.”

Because there was nothing I could say to change her mind, I pointed my gaze at hers and spoke soft, but firm. “Bullshit.”

She cocked one eyebrow and tilted her head. “Excuse me?”

And if I was going to blow it, I would blow it big because Keaton Shaw never did anything halfway. No matter how much it broke my heart.

“What happened to your friend didn’t happen to you and I get it. You’re mad on her behalf, but to use it as an excuse to stop seeing me is bullshit.” I wiped my palms together. Never had they been so sweaty, or had I been so nervous over a woman’s reaction. “I’ll go if you want, or take you to your friend’s house, and we don’t ever have to talk again, but I didn’t hurt your friend. I hope you know that.”

I waited a second. “All you have to do is tell me to go.”

She closed her eyes, and I held my breath until she said, “I don’t want to.”

And no words in my life had ever made me happier.

15

Avery

I left the self-recriminations outside of the bedroom, but oh boy were they waiting for me when I dragged myself to the kitchen for coffee. He was leaving in days, not weeks or months, days.

Days.

Days.

But right now, he was in my room, in my bed, under my blankets.

Correction, he was walking through my living room, shirtless, adorably disheveled, smiling, and coming right at me.

The morning after nerves, an absence of coherent thought, and a numb tongue came together all at once. Yep. I had about two seconds to get my shit together before he…oh yeah…hugged me. “Good morning.”

How did he still manage to smell so good? And look so good? And feel…so good? “Good morning.”

He kissed the top of my head then laid his cheek over the spot. “You have plans Friday night?”

I never had plans. The question was, did I want him to know that.

“No.” If I was only going to have a few more days with him, I wanted every minute I could get. Selfish and stupid as it was.

“Do you remember Jameson King?”

Of course, I did, he was part of the scandal that rocked Glouster. But I hadn’t really known him. “Not really.”

“We played football together. He got hurt senior year.” When I shook my head because the memory of that time still caused me to lose my breath and my head to hurt, he let me go. “He asked me to have dinner with him and his wife Friday.”

He chewed his lip as the coffee maker finished its final dribble into the pot and I poured two steaming mugs of Colombian brew. “Said I could bring a date.”

That sounded a little too much like relationship stuff that would leave me with a broken heart when he left. “I don’t know, Keaton, that’s your friend. I don’t want to get in the way of all the reminiscing about your glory days.”

Mostly I didn’t want to sit in a room with someone who had a part in making me a college cliché.

“All right.” He cocked his head. “Even if my friend, Jameson, is married to your friend, Susie?”

Susie? The love of Alex’s life? The reason he was walking around with a three-karat diamond in his pocket? It had to be a mistake. “What, now?”

“Three kids, her red hair, his curls. Your fake boyfriend kissed her a thousand times the other night.” He stared at me, but I couldn’t process.